Between the last 17 and 22 October it was held in Durban, South Africa, the fifteenth version of the Poetry Africa festival and its inauguration was marked by a poetry reading for the defense of the earth and nature. Echoing these ideas, WPM gathers in its website’s poetry section a sample of poems on this theme.

Entanglement and recovery of nature:
Conjunction of voices of poets from the five continents

This selection of poems is a choir that sings in the dimension of nature and its gifts. The sacredness of the living takes effect, now that the impact of have taken the devastation and torture of nature as synonymous with progress is being suffered.

The poems presented does consolidate the poetic expression as an action of the spirit that is foundational conscience of deep respect to what lives and enlightens us with his greatness and beauty, in the miraculous act of existence, to us, the descendants of the Sun and the Ocean.

With this sample of poetry it is enriched a new instance of mental outlook that is taking shape, in front of the advance of the desert, through the word which gives life, in the singing that celebrates the light and its creatures.

Stick tightly to the big tree
Stick to the chest of the son of the forest
Listen to the monster with branches and leaves shaking
And see if it is raving, raving

(...)

Gao Hongbo (China, 1951)

* * *

GAO HONGBO was born in Inner Mongolia in 1951. Nationalized in China. He has been successively editor of the literary and arts editor of the poetry magazine and director of creative writing department of the China Association of Writers, to which it belongs since 1984 and which is currently its secretary. Began publishing his writing in 1971 and has since published 14 anthologies of poems for children, 23 selections of his essays, fairy tales and 7 two anthologies criticism. (...)

It took a hurricane, to bring her closer
to the landscape.
Half the night she lay awake,
the howling ship of the wind,
its gathering rage,
like some dark ancestral spectre,
fearful and reassuring:

(...)

Grace Nichols (Guyana, United Kingdom, 1950)

* * *

GRACE NICHOLS was born in Georgetown, Guyana, in 1950 and grew up in a small country village on the Guyanese coast. She moved to the city with her family when she was eight, an experience central to her first novel, Whole of a Morning Sky (1986), set in 1960s Guyana in the middle of the country's struggle for independence. (...)

they had to believe in miracles
if Christ could turn stone into bread
and snake into fish
then surely he will turn the dry dust of Dimbaza
into water

they had to believe in miracles
in god’s mysterious ways
since he allowed the reincarnated hitlers
to wrench them out of their homes

(...)

Daniel Kunene (South Africa, 1923)

* * *

DANIEL KUNENE was born in South Africa in 1923. Professor Emeritus, University of Wisconsin, B.A. (University of South Africa, 1949), M.A. and Ph.D. (University of Cape Town, 1951 and 1961 respectively), Awarded D.Litt. et Phil. (honoris causa) (University of South Africa, 1999). (...)

I met an old man walking
across the dry pelt land.
he followed the scent of water
a forked stick in his hand.

his eyes shone bright as Namib stars
in grey had aged his head.
the lines on his face had weathered
dry as a catchment bed.

(...)

Dorian Haarhoff (Namibia, 1944)

* * *

DORIAN HAARHOFF was born in Namibia in 1944. He is a published poet and writer, a story-teller and a personal development speaker. Based currently in Cape Town, South Africa, he trundles his wagon of words like a tinker to different parts of southern Africa and elsewhere. He facilitates poetry and creative writing workshops and acts as a writing coach. Since 1998 he has run his own business, Creative Workshops. (...)

Listen to the blare of annunciation
Of the African elephant, tetrarch of the jungle!
Behold what slow, majestic progress on the hoof
Of matriarchs, their young and their one bull
As they head for the waterhole.

(...)

Timothy Wangusa (Uganda, 1940)

* * *

TIMOTHY WANGUSA was born in eastern Uganda, in 1942. He is both novelist and well published poet with favourite themes and subjects being nature, history, politics and the spiritual arena. ‘The need deep in my inside to put into words as rhythmic and concise and rich as possible, some moments of personal wonderment and the poignant experiences within my social context, made me become a poet.’(...)

The land's rusty again.
Acid rain: our blackened cucumber wines
Jut from the earth like scorched wire.
And I'm not sure about the orchard this year.
It nees a good cleaning up,
But I'm scared of those trees. When I walk
Among them, it feels like I'm going to step
On some carcass rotting in the tall grass,
Something crawling with worms, something smiling
Sickly in the hot sun.
And I get nervous over the sounds:
The day before yesterday, in the thicket, meowing,
The monotonous creaking of a tree,
The suppressed cackling of geese - all constantly
Straining for the same note. Do you remember
The dry elm, the one lightning turned
Into a giant charred bone last summer?
Sometimes I thing it lords
Over the whole garden, infecting everything with rabid madness.

(...)

Oksana Zabuzhko (Ukraine, 1962)

Translated by Douglas Smith

* * *

OKSANA ZABUZHKO (born 19 September 1960) is a contemporary Ukrainian poet, writer and essayist. Born in Lutsk, Ukraine, Zabuzhko studied philosophy at the Kiev University, where she also obtained her doctorate in aesthetics in 1987. In 1992 she taught at Penn State University as an invited writer. Zabuzhko won a Fulbright scholarship in 1994 and taught Ukrainian literature at Harvard and University of Pittsburgh. (...)

Who’ll save dying Man?
I, said the Chimpanzee.
He’s welcome to my brain,
for deep down we’re the same.

(...)

John Agard (Guyana, United Kingdom, 1949)

* * *

JOHN AGARD was born on 21 June 1949 in British Guiana (now Guyana). Playwright, poet, short-story and children's writer, he worked for the Guyana Sunday Chronicle newspaper as sub-editor and feature writer before moving to England in 1977, where he became a touring lecturer for the Commonwealth Institute, travelling to schools throughout the UK to promote a better understanding of Caribbean culture. (...)

It’s okay for you to cry, as one by one you are sectioned off,
up the wooden ramps towards the killing box & okay
for you to bang your curly horns against the tin.
& it’s okay for your cracked & dusty hoof to stamp out its last thunder
into this silence we call Ngemba.

(...)

Coral Hull (Australia, 1965)

* * *

CORAL HULL was born in Paddington, New South Wales, Australia in 1965, and is a full-time writer. She is an animal rights activist and co-founder of Animal Watch Australia. She completed a Masters of Arts Degree at Deakin University in 1994 and a Doctor of Creative Arts Degree at the University of Wollongong in 1998. (...)

I will enter a river
I take off my clothes and go in and open the door for you
and look inside his home
and I will be seated in the black chairs
and in the mirrors;
if he speaks I will hear what he says and what he wants
and how he orders everyone and says that he’s going to swirl
and I will see when his legs begin to take the bank apart.

(...)

Ramón Palomares (Venezuela, 1935)

* * *

RAMÓN PALOMARES was born in Escuque, Venezuela, the 7 of May of 1935. One of the great present poets in Castilian language. Teacher and specialist in classic languages. Central personage of the Sardio group, and the ceiling of the whale, expression of the poetic vanguard in its country. Poem books: The kingdom, 1958; Countryman, 1964; You military funeral honors, 1965; Santiago of Leon of Caracas, 1967; The smooth vientecito of the dawn with the first aromas, 1969; Escuque good bye (Poems 1968-1974); (...)

We teach the stone
How to become arrows, spears
How to become granaries
How to become houses, ceilings, walls
To engrave on, portraits,
Statues, bridges, workshops,
Classrooms, pyramids, columns,
Fort gates
Which open to warmth
During the cold or the heat.

(...)

Zein El Abdin Fouad (Egypt, 1942)

* * *

ZEIN EL ABDIN FOUAD was born in Cairo in 1942, Zein has authored 7 books of poetry & 8 books concerning children’s art. Zein has participated in many international poetry festival, including in the Arab World, Africa, Europe, North America & Latin America. In 1982 Zein al Abdin was in Beirut writing songs concerning the Israeli invasion.

The day the Lake broke the levee
Jumped the fence
And swallowed the city

(...)

Niyi Osundare (Nigeria, 1947)

* * *

NIYI OSUNDARE was born in Ikere-Ekiti, Nigeria, in 1947. He is a New Orleans/Nigerian poet, dramatist, critical essayist, and columnist. He is Professor of English at Universities of New Orleans and Ibadan. Osundare is an intensely political poet and a vehement champion for human rights. His award-winning Selected Poems were published by Heinemann in 1992. (...)

We cut down the pines
So the flowers may thrive
We cut down the pines
And as our saws touched
The sap of
The towering trees
We shed tears
But knew the flowers
Had to live
And the trees had to move.

(...)

Ibrahim Nasrallah (Jordania, Palestina, 1954)

* * *

SUSAN KIGULI born on June 24, 1969 in Luweero District, Uganda, is an internationally recognized Ugandan poet and literary scholar. Currently (as of 2011) a senior lecturer at Makerere University, Kiguli has been an advocate for creative writing in Africa, including service as a founding member of FEMRITE, as a judge for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (African Region 1999), and as an advisory board member for African Writers Trust. (...)

I do not have a dog nose
But I can smell and distinguish between carbon-monoxide and oxygen

(...)

Zolani Mkiva (South Africa, 1974)

* * *

ZOLANI MKIVA is one of the youngest practioners of one of the oldest oral traditions in africa, ukubonga (praise singing). Hailing from idutywa a small town in the eastern cape province of south africa, Zolani rose to prominence in 1990 when, barely a month after becoming a fully-fledged imbongi yesizwe (poet of the nation), the schoolboy was called upon to salute with a red hot rendition the recently released Nelson Mandela at his welcome home rally in transkei. This way, he officially came to be nelson Mandela’s poet laureate. Zolani studied social sciences in the University of the western cape, as he continued with the practice of his music. (...)

One day at sunset a grey
shadow arose from the river,
transparent, Its water turned into a
mirror of my life.

(...)

Fathieh Saudi (Jordania, 1949)

* * *

FATHIEH SAUDI was born in Jordan. She completed her medical studies in France and worked as a doctor in Jordan and Lebanon. She has been involved for more than 30 years with the defense of human rights, peace and justice, in particular in the Middle East.Since moving to the UK, Fathieh has been particularly interested in writing as a tool for personal development and the healing process. (...)